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I was heading to SLC for a long weekend to catch some freshies at Snowbird and packed my GoPro for some video recaps. I never pulled it out for day 1, but took it out that night to prepare for the next day. I tried to power on and no luck? This was odd so after multiple attempts and no reaction except for the red light on the back I turned to the web in search of a solution. I found it to be enough of a popular subject that I found an answer, but it was what I had already tried. Basically it suggested taking the battery out and trying to re-boot after putting it back in. Eventually after multiple attempts it booted—great! In the morning we walked to the tram and I was powered up and ready for our first run of the day. I hit record and all seemed well. We finished our run and stopped recording at the base never to get the camera to turn back on for the rest of the day. I guess it powered off after the initial run. I performed the same tasks that night with the same issues.

Fast forward 2 weeks and I just decided to manually reinstall the firmware. So far so good!!! I’m hoping that this was the resolve, but it will take several more attempts over the next few days to know for sure. I’ll update in a week or so with my results.

We are in the Catskills of New York for our friends wedding. I took the opportunity to get down to the river behind where we’re staying to take some long exposure shots. I have my Tiffen Variable ND filter, my Lee Big Stopper and my Hoya NDX400 with me today. If I was shooting this scene with the current light the exposure would be 1/100 @f11 ISO 100. I was able to get down to a 10 second exposure with my Lee Bigstopper and that means super smooth water flow!

I’ll post these up as soon as I finish processing the shots from Tuscany! Enjoy the weekend!

It’s been an amazing week in Tuscany! The people, the food, the history and the wine were all amazing. We managed to visit a lot of towns during the week and clocked in about 1000km of driving total. I’m looking forward to processing my images and seeing the final results. Here’s a little preview.

I’ll have more to post later and I’ll have recommendations for anyone heading to the region. Until then, ciao!

Updates in latest release – v5.0.5
Added support for recent camera models such as the Panasonic GH4 and Nikon D750 and D810.
On Batch Bracketed Photos, resizing options now differentiate between landscape and portrait orientation (by letting the user resize the long and short edge instead of width and height), and offer the ability to automatically set the short edge based on the long edge.
Bug fixed: Processing Nikon D600 Raw files could result in pink highlights. (Bug had been fixed in version 4.2.7 but reintroduced in version 5.0)
Bug fixed: With some specific images, the Batch Bracketed Photos could crash when the “perspective correction” option was left unchecked.
Bug fixed: The ‘360º image’ option of the Fusion/Real-Estate method did not work.
Bug fixed: The Fusion/Real-Estate method didn’t properly support 64-bit addressing, resulting in incorrect result when fusing a relatively high number of large files, such as 7 or more 200 MegaPixels panoramas for instance.
[Win only] Windows 8 users can now run Photomatix without having to install an older version of the .NET Framework.
[Win only] Bug fixed: Crop feature required to start the crop selection from the top left.
[Win only] Bug fixed: Crash when running Photomatix on systems with more than 32 cores.
[Win only] Bug fixed: Button to choose custom output location was sometimes incorrectly disabled in Batch Processing window.
[Win only] Bug fixed: Loading ZIP-compressed TIFF files coming from an iPhone could result in a crash.
[Win only] Bug fixed: No error message was shown when TIFF files with unsupported compression format failed to load.
[Win only] Bug fixed: No error message was shown when TIFF files with unsupported compression format failed to load.
[Win only] Bug fixed: With greyscale JPEG images, the preview on the Deghosting Options window did not display correctly
[Win only] If a font needed by Photomatix is missing on the computer, the FontViewer utility is started to allow installing the missing font directly.
[Mac only] Bug fixed: When a single Jpeg or Tiff file is tone mapped and ‘Yes’ chosen when prompted on whether to apply the noise reduction, the ‘Redo with Other Settings’ feature did not work, hanging the application.
[Mac only] Bug fixed: Loading ZIP-compressed TIFF files coming from an iPhone could hang the application.
[Mac only] Bug fixed: Batch Bracketed Photos didn’t list the Fusion/Auto Preset.

I’ve been interested in a smaller form camera for awhile now and this weekend I decided to test out the Fuji XT-1. While attending PhotoPlus here in NYC on November 1st, I was able to get my hands on the Sony a7’s, Olympus OM-D and the Fuji XT-1.

I was surprised by the fact that all of these smaller form factor cameras were indeed a lot smaller than my Canon 5D. In fact, so much smaller that most didn’t feel comfortable in my gorilla mitt hands.

After playing around with all three models, the Fuji XT-1 felt the best to me. I think the Sony a7 could work with the battery grip attached, but straight out of the of box it feels tiny. As far as the Olympus OM-D, I really liked the look, but it also felt impossibly small while trying to handle it.

Another reason the Fuji won me over was the functional dials. All the settings such as ISO, F-Stop & Shutter Speed can be adjusted without the need of going through menus and to me that was a big plus. With the latest firmware update, Fuji added a bunch of features and functionality to the camera as well. I hope four days is enough to get acclimated!

I’m excited to get it in my hands today and start using it. It’s set to snow here tonight in NYC and you know I love snow. I’m hoping the snow gets light enough for some good powdery pictures. Either way, I’ll post some results after the weekend if I make it out of tomorrow’s food coma.

All winter long I look forward to the snow and it’s ability to change the landscape. Here are a few selects from this past brutally cold winter in the Northeast. I hope that they can help cool you on these warm balmy summer days.

I stopped by Times Square tonight to shoot my friends work on some Digital Billboards that went live at 5:30pm. My talented friend Anna of #SanbornMedia put this shoot and idea together and my other talented friend @janarago did the hair and styling for the shoot. A pretty exciting moment for them as you could imagine. Here are 4 pictures that I took to show off their talents. So proud of you guys!

I picked up a near new demo “Elinchrom Bxri500 To-Go Kit” the other week after I exhausted myself searching for the best deal on some studio lights. I’ve been wanting to shoot some portraits and a few self promotional pieces and decided to go with this kit to get me started. I can say I’m not generally the one to buy the cheapest and upgrade later or to buy something that will get me by for the meantime. I chose this kit to last based on multiple reviews and weighed the portability, cost/repair and replacement with the most “pop” for the buck. Hopefully I made the correct decision. More information on the kit here: http://www.adorama.com/EL20758KIT.html

Here are a few test shots that I took over the weekend of myself and of a rather delicious roasted chicken. So far, I’m pleased with the recycle times and the quality of the light, but I have far more tests to make. Nothing special as far as the setup goes with these, but I added any relevant info after each shot for those interested. I used one light for all of these shots.

1st test: Black cloth background. Light set 45 degrees from my head right of camera, slightly elevated. This is me after a long day…

2nd test: Paper white background. Light set 45 degrees from my head right of camera, slightly elevated. I cleaned up a little for this one. =)

3rd test: Same setup with paper white background. Light set 45 degrees from my head right of camera, slightly elevated.

I posted my shot of Dee called “My Flower Amongst Other Flowers” last night and was happy to awake this morning with news that the picture had gained popularity on 500px.com. I shot this when Dee and I were on our way up to Portland, ME for a food inspired weekend getaway. Check it out here: http://500px.com/photo/49999922 Thanks in advance for any likes/votes/comments!